Dash and Gilda Save Equestria
by Atomic Rexx
Summary: For lack of a better title! And it's not finished, at all! Just wanted to put this somewhere where my friends could easily read it. Completed version coming very soon. Rated K .


The Ballad of Rainbow Dash

One fine day in Ponyville, a blue, rainbow-maned pegasus pony named Rainbow Dash was whizzing through the sky at an unbelievable speed. She was a mere blur in the afternoon sky. The very clouds themselves seemed to dissipate as she flew through their midst. And from loop the loops to even greater aerial stunts, she preformed them all with the greatest ease. Rainbow Dash was the wind, she was the sky, and she was where she truly belonged.

Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes and set her sights upon a very tall cumulonimbus cloud that towered into the sky. As she approached the cloud, it gave a thunderous growl as if challenging her to destroy it. Before she could crash directly into it, Rainbow Dash quickly turned upwards and flew towards the top of the huge monolith of evaporated water. As soon as she was at the summit, she inhaled deeply and dove down with all her might, but, to her surprise, she was tossed back by an unseeable force before she could feel the misty sensation of tearing right into a cloud.

"WHOA! What in Equestria?!" exclaimed Rainbow Dash as she steadied herself in the air and quickly examined the sky to see what had thrown her back.

As she scanned her surroundings, she managed to catch a glimpse of a brownish coloured blur flying away from where the cloud had been. Rainbow Dash growled and snorted while kicking the air with her hind legs.

"So, you wanna tangle with me, punk? Alright, challenge accepted!" she shouted as she bolted after the brown coloured blur that was about ten feet ahead of her. Of course, the distance didn't really matter. Rainbow Dash had always been at the top of her class when it came to flying fast, her cutie mark wasn't a lightning bolt for nothing.

In about ten seconds flat, Rainbow Dash had caught up to the strange blur and tackled it down to the ground. As the dust from the impact cleared, a familiar face came into view. It was a strange creature indeed, she had a face like an eagle's, with piercing yellow eyes and a sharp looking beak. That wasn't the only avian quality about the creature though, for she also possessed fierce talons, and even more impressively, a brilliant set of dark brown wings. However, the back end of her was certainly more mammalian than anything, as she had large paws and a tail just like a lion's.

Almost immediately, Rainbow Dash's heart took a dive, for she knew this odd creature quite well.

"Gilda?! What are _you_ doing here?" she released her old friend, and gave her a suspicious glance. Gilda and Rainbow Dash's friendship went all the way back to her old days at flight school, where they were an inseparable pair. After those days were over, they still kept in touch, occasionally visiting each other and hanging out, usually in the air.

Unfortunately, Gilda's most recent visit to Ponyville had not ended with the two friends being on the best of terms. One of Rainbow Dash's new friends from Ponyville, a springy young mare named Pinkie Pie, was unassumingly intruding on their time together, causing Gilda, who was known for having a bit of a feisty attitude, to bully her.

However, this didn't really bother Pinkie too much, and her good nature inspired her to throw a huge party for Gilda in the hopes of improving her sour attitude. But sadly, this did not go over as well as the party pony had planned, as Gilda just so happened to walk into various pranks that Rainbow Dash had set. This really set her off, and caused her to lash out at Pinkie Pie and call the entirety of Ponyville a bunch of losers.

Of course, since Ponyville had been Rainbow Dash's home ever since she left Cloudsdale and Pinkie was one of her closest new friends, she was highly offended by her old friend's actions, and saw her for the disrespectful brute she really was. Infuriated, Gilda flew off to parts unknown, and Rainbow Dash had to apologize to the entirety of Ponyville for bringing Gilda to their town.

So naturally, it would've been safe to assume that they would never meet again. But obviously, this wasn't the case, as Rainbow Dash was staring right at her old friend, waiting for a reply to her admittedly good question regarding her presence..

Gilda sputtered and coughed, shaking all the dust out of her feathers and fur. "Gee, Rainbow, after all these years you still pack a punch," she coughed again, this time quite loudly. She stood up and stretched out her limbs, showing off her magnificent wingspan that allowed her to fly with the huge power to destroy gigantic thunderclouds by smacking directly into them.

Rainbow Dash growled and stamped at the ground, "I want an answer birdbrain, _now!_"

Gilda seemed to be taken a bit aback by her old friend's sour attitude. "Chill out Rainbow, jeez. I was just flying around, can't a griffon stretch her wings out every once in a while?"

"Well, duh, I'm not saying that! What I'm saying is, out of all the skies in Equestria, why'd you decide to come flying around here?"

"Psh, maybe I was just wanted to check out how things were going around here, and, well, maybe I also wanted to apologize to you about what happened a few years back," Gilda admitted, suddenly sounding quite sincere.

Rainbow Dash cast a judgmental gaze towards her old friend. She wasn't really buying her sincere attitude much at all, but she had to admit, she did kind of miss flying around with Gilda from time to time. After all, Gilda had only wanted to hang out with her, and it wasn't her fault she was really short tempered. Pinkie Pie just didn't know any better. Why, maybe she was wrong about her old friend. Maybe she had just misjudged her.

"Really?" Rainbow said excitedly, "I dunno if I should be this happy about seeing someone who was so cruel to one of my friends, though..."

"Aw, you mean Pinkie Pie or whatever her name was?"

"Yeah, Pinkie... and the entirety of Ponyville to an extent."

"Oh, man. I still feel really terrible about how I behaved back then. I was a monster."

"Er, yeah, you kinda were; sorry," Rainbow kicked at the dirt.

Gilda frowned and her fringe drooped, "I'm really sorry Rainbow Dash. I don't know what I was thinking. Won't you forgive me, please?"

Rainbow Dash's heart dropped, the griffon in front of her did look truly sorry.

"Well... Okay Gilda, I forgive you."

Suddenly, Rainbow Dash found herself in one of the tightest hugs of her life, and she was being spun around in the air at such a rate that it was making her sick. "Yessssss! Thank you so much, Dash! I missed you bud," Gilda gave Rainbow Dash a noogie and then dropped her to the ground.

Rainbow Dash shook her head and tried to steady herself, "Heh heh, you're welcome Gildaaa..."

"Yeah, don't mention it man. Now, you still live in that sweet cloud house?"

"Yep! I sure do, wanna race me there?" Rainbow Dash got into position, wings outstretched.

"You bet your cutie mark sister!" Gilda replied, as she sped off towards Rainbow Dash's cloud house, leaving her in the dust.

"Hey, no fair Gilda!" Rainbow Dash shouted towards her friend as they both flew to their destination.

When Rainbow Dash and Gilda arrived, the first thing the griffon did was hurry to her old friend's refrigerator. She threw open the door and took out a huge carton of ice cream, took a spoon and sat down on Rainbow Dash's living room couch, stuffing her face with strawberry ice cream.

"Oh, um, sure you can have some, Gilda."

Gilda stopped eating for a moment and glanced at her friend, "Er, sorry Dash, it's just, haven't had any of this stuff for a while," then went back to chowing down seconds later.

"What? That's crazy, they seriously don't have ice cream in whatever place you live in now?"

"Nope, they don't have anything this good there, that's for sure."

"Wow, if I were you, I'd have left there right when I settled down."

"Heh, in a way, I kinda did," said Gilda with a slight grin. She set the ice cream carton down and gave a huge sigh. "Hey, got anything else with tons of sugar?"

Rainbow Dash cocked her head, "What do you mean you left? Can't you tell me where you were staying?"

Gilda suddenly looked anxious, "W-why do you want to know so badly, Dash?"

"Because you're my friend! And you've been gone for like, two years now!"

The room suddenly went completely silent as the sound of sirens filled the air. Gilda screamed and ducked underneath a pillow, before diving towards Rainbow Dash and grasping her forearms tightly.

"Please, Rainbow Dash, please! You gotta' understand me, it was tough out there for a lonely griffon, really, really tough. I did some things, some terrible things, things that were even worse than what I done in Ponyville, but you gotta' understand Dash, please!" Gilda had been talking extremely frantically, making it even harder for Rainbow Dash to process what she had just been told.

Finally, she had formulated a response, "What in Equestria did you _do_ Gilda?!"

"I stole a candy bar!" she moaned, while loosening her grip on her friends arms and shrinking into a ball of feathers and tears at her friend's hooves.

"_That's it?! _Seriously? I didn't think they could throw you into jail for doing that."

"Oh, no Rainbow Dash. It wasn't just any candy bar, it was Princess Celestia's royal snack! The one that gets made by the finest chocolatiers in all of Equestria at the start of every month. I stole that one!"

"_What?!_ Why would you steal _that_ candy bar of all candy bars?"

"Because, it looked delicious..."

Rainbow Dash put her hoof to her forehead and groaned, not only had she forgotten how much of a kleptomaniac Gilda could be, but she had also forgotten that she was a bit headstrong as well. Now she was stuck with a wanted criminal in her house. Luckily, she knew just what to do with her.

"You know what? I think I'll just turn you in. You come back to Ponyville, destroy that cloud that _I_ was going to destroy, claim that you were sorry for bullying all my friends _and_ insulting my whole species, _and _eating all my ice cream!" Rainbow Dash walked towards the door of her house as the sirens grew closer, while Gilda flew off and hid somewhere deeper in the house.

"Gah, what a pain in the flank. I never should've trusted that stupid griffon, not after what she did to my friends."

Rainbow Dash opened the front door of her home and said, "Alright boys, the royal candy bar thief? You can have her, she's somewhere in the house, just search it. You've got my permission, just get her the hay out of my house!"

"Young mare, what are you talking about?"

Rainbow Dash paused and stamped the ground hard, "You know! The griffon, Gilda! The one that stole Princess Celestia's royal snack! She's here, in my house somewhere! Probably the kitchen, drowning her sorrows in some chocolate sauce or something."

"Oh!" The royal guard in the carriage suddenly looked angry, "Keep a close eye on her young mare, but I've got to warn the citizens of Ponyville for now. It's a crisis!"

"What?! What's going on down there?"

"A huge storm is coming, the meteorologists are calling it the storm of the century! They don't even know what caused it, or where it came from for that matter, but we do know that all of the country is at risk! This storm will bring about gale force winds that will topple trees and destroy buildings, snowstorms that will cover entire deserts in ice and snow, lightning storms that will cause Cloudsdale and structures such as your house to be at a huge risk! To put it shortly, all of Equestria is doomed. Better say your prayers, young mare," with that, the royal guard flew down towards Ponyville, leaving Rainbow Dash at her front door, mouth agape and heart shattered.

"Oh my Celestia, Gilda, come down here quick! They're not after you now, but there's a huge storm coming that could destroy Equestria!"

Sooner than you can say disaster, Gilda came rocketing down the stairs, "_What?!_ You're kidding me!"

"No, I'm completely serious," Rainbow Dash stuck her head out a window and gasped, "Follow me, Gilda!"

Rainbow Dash zoomed out the front door and Gilda followed behind her. The two of them soared high into the sky and looked out to sea, what they saw was terrifying.

A huge, dark mass of swirling wind and rain was moving towards Equestria at a frightening speed. It looked like a mutated cloud born out of a weatherpony's worst nightmare; parts of it were jet black and crackling with electricity, while another was pale white and seemingly vomiting snow and sleet, while another still was grey and blowing fiercely, with huge twisters poking out from underneath it.

Rainbow Dash gulped and murmured, "I think this is it, Gilda. I really think this is it."

"You should go down to Ponyville and be with your friends, Dash. I'll go back to Canterlot and turn myself in. I'm sure they don't want to see me," Gilda said sadly.

"That's crazy talk, Gilda. It's the apocalypse. I'm sure they won't mind at all," Rainbow Dash gave her a feeble smile, which Gilda returned, and they both flew down to Ponyville together.

As expected, all of Ponyville was in chaos. Ponies were running wild in the streets, most of them desperately trying to get home to to their loved ones, some just overrun with panic. Many of the ponies homes were boarded up, a desperate attempt to have their houses and families spared from the storm's wrath.

In the center of town stood a large tree that doubled as the town's library, where Twilight Sparkle was the head librarian. Rainbow Dash and Gilda entered the library and were met with the sight of a purple Alicorn rummaging through piles and piles of books. Upon hearing the two of them enter, Twilight ran up to Rainbow Dash and gave her a giant hug.

"Rainbow Dash! I'm so happy you're okay, I was afraid you might've gone to face the storm yourself."

"Heh, I'm not that crazy Twilight," Rainbow Dash scoffed.

"And... Gilda. Nice to see you again," Twilight gave a weak smile and extended a hoof, which Gilda shook with one of her huge talons.

"Twilight Sparkle, I remember you. Nice to be back here in Ponyville, I hope there's no hard feelings."

"Oh, of course not Gilda. Not now, anyway. I'm sure you've changed your attitude since then," Twilight gave a cheerful smile and then trotted away to investigate her pile of books some more.

Rainbow Dash walked over to Twilight and asked, "What exactly are you doing, Twilight?"

"Well, I'm trying to see if any of my books have any information on whatever that weather anomaly is. I'm a bit suspicious of its origins. I mean, Cloudsdale does control the weather in all of Equestria. I actually have a theory," Twilight sounded incredibly smart, "I think this weird stormcloud is actually a huge monster! Three huge monsters, to be exact, since the storm has three components."

"You know Twilight, that actually does sound kinda possible. I mean, that thing sure didn't come from Cloudsdale," Rainbow Dash said. Just then, the door opened, and a little purple and green dragon entered, bringing with him an entourage of four other ponies.

"Twilight! I found them, why'd you want me to bring all your friends here anyway?"

"Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie Pie!" Twilight raced towards all her friends and they embraced each other in a big group hug. "I just wanted to be sure that they were all safe and sound Spike, and I'm glad you are too."

"Oh, I understand Twilight. In all honesty, I'm kinda scared of the storm..."

The ponies all said "awww" in unison, while Fluttershy walked over and sat down next to Spike.

"There, there Spike. I'm sure we'll all be just fine, don't worry about it. Let's just sit here and wait it out, okay?"

"Okay, thanks a lot Fluttershy," Spike said as he cuddled up next to the yellow pegasus pony. Fluttershy had a talent dealing with all sorts of animals, from the tiniest bunnies, to enormous fire-breathing dragons, so helping calm little baby Spike was no problem at all. Although, by her mannerisms, it was fairly obvious that she was quite scared herself.

"Aw, ain't that just the cutest thing you ever seen?" said Applejack, a orange pony with a country accent.

"Poor little Spikey-wikey... it's okay darling," said a white unicorn named Rarity, as she used her magic to move a small blanket over to cover Spike up.

"Yeah, they do look pretty peaceful together," Rainbow Dash said with a smile, "Oh, uh, guys, I hope you all remember Gilda. She flew by here earlier because she was trying to hide from the cops, but she just happened to come across me and hid in my house. Then a royal guard came by, and told us about the storm, and we both came down to check on you all."

Gilda stepped forward and swallowed hard, then said, "I'm really sorry. I acted so horribly last time I was here, and I just want you all to know that I'm truly sorry."

The ponies all stared at Gilda, the memories of her last visit came back into their heads simultaneously. It was especially painful for poor Fluttershy, who was roared at by Gilda for doing absolutely nothing but bumping into her by accident, which caused her to run away crying. Fluttershy whimpered slightly, and put her head next to Spike's.

"Fluttershy, please believe me. I'm so sorry. I was acting like a huge bully, I know. But I know that I was wrong now, and I really am sorry. Do you forgive me?"

Fluttershy sniveled and whimpered again, but it wasn't in her nature to hold grudges, especially not at a time like this, and she nodded slowly and smiled.

"Oh, thank you Fluttershy. Do you all forgive me?"

The ponies all nodded, even Twilight did as she paused to look up from her reading. Gilda seemed extremely relieved.

"Good... I thought we'd have to go through this as enemies."

Just then, Twilight slammed a large book on the floor in front of her, "Aha! I've found it, look at this!"

They all crowded around the book, while Twilight stood by, looking very proud of herself for having found the mystery monster.

Twilight read aloud, "The Nubeconem is a trio of beasts of equally frightful proportions. With the capability to wipe out entire continents if left unchecked, the three monsters combine three different types of storm, electrical, snow, and wind. The electrical storm is known as Electricus, and has a body composed of a thick black cloud, with the highest voltage of electricity coarsing through its veins, which it can release anywhere and on anything."

"Yes! The black cloud was just like that, there was electricity crackling all over it!" Gilda exclaimed.

"Keep reading Twilight, maybe it says something about how to stop it!" Rainbow Dash said excitedly.

"The snowstorm is known as Nixicus, and has a body as white as fresh snow, but with the capability to turn a hot desert into a frozen wasteland. The windstorm is known as Venticus, and has a grey body composed of swirling winds and tornadoes capable of laying waste to a whole city. The origin of the beasts is unknown, but they are not of pony creation. The only way to stop a Nubeconem from laying waste to a city is to attack its three separate heads before they have expanded to a size beyond containment."

"There's no time to waste! When Dash and I saw it, it was almost here!" Exclaimed Gilda, almost leaping out the open door.

"Not so fast Gilda, I don't know about this..." Twilight said, "I mean, let's say you both did manage to come face to face with one of the Nubeconems, would you know what exactly to do to stop it? _Could_ you both stop it? Even if you did manage to destroy one, how would you handle the other two of them?"

Rainbow Dash thought long and hard about the whole situation. On one hoof, both her and Gilda were raring to take it on alone, with the other pegasi of the land probably holed up in their homes, too afraid to emerge. Heck, they weren't even informed of how Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were handling the situation, the both of them were probably quite terrified themselves. So, in a way, they were probably Equestria's only hope. No, they _were_ Equestria's only hope.

But on the other hoof, they didn't know exactly how they'd go about destroying one of the Nubeconems, and they didn't even know if they'd be able to find one of their heads before being struck by lightning, frozen to death or caught up in a raging twister. Rainbow Dash winced and thought the whole situation over, and then thought it over again, silently hoping it was all a bad dream.

When she opened her eyes, she wasn't in her house laying in bed, she was in Twilight's library, with all her friends gathered around her, waiting for a decision. It was then that Rainbow Dash finally made up her mind.

"I'm going. I'm sorry Twilight, but Gilda and I have to try and take on these beasts, and if we can't save ourselves, I at least hope that we can save all of you."

All of her friends stood there in utter shock, before Twilight ran up to her and gave her a hug. "Please don't try anything reckless Rainbow Dash."

The rest of the ponies nodded in agreement, and trotted up to give Rainbow Dash and even Gilda a hug and say some words of encouragement.

"Don't worry everypony, we'll be back, I promise."

"Yeah, we've got this guys. Don't worry!" Gilda said, and with that, they were off, speeding towards the coast of Equestria.

"You see it, don't you Gilda?" shouted Rainbow Dash as they were in mid-flight, as a partial bird of prey, Gilda had spectacular eyesight.

"Oh yeah, it's right up ahead, and it's gotten way bigger!"

They both stopped flying ahead, and tried to formulate a plan.

"Alright, Gilda. There's three beasts, and two of us, so I think the best plan of action would be to attack them one at a time. Just for consistency's sake, I think we should take on the Electricus first. Even though I _really_ don't like the idea of being struck by lightning..."

Gilda was silent for a moment, and just stared forward at the monstrous cloud. "You know Dash, when I woke up this morning, I did not expect to be fighting a huge cloud monster thing and saving Equestria by the end of it. It just feels so... weird, you know?"

"Oh yeah, you're telling me. But we gotta' hurry, like Twilight said, it's only going to get bigger the more time we waste."

"Rainbow Dash..."

"Yeah, Gilda?"

"Is it okay that I'm... scared?"

"Hey, don't be nervous about it. I'm scared too, but I usually just convert my fear into awesome!" Rainbow Dash flew around and made a huge lightning bolt shaped trail in the sky, "I taught myself how to do it a while back, you just gotta' put that fear at the back of your mind and visualize yourself kicking that monster's tail and saving Equestria!"

Gilda appeared energized after her friend's pep talk, and she sped off towards the cloud, with Rainbow Dash trailing behind her.

After a few more miles, the both of them came face to face with a swirling, crackling mass of thunder and lightning as black as the night sky. It was climbing over the mountains of Equestria, striking trees with huge lightning bolts as it went.

"Okay, so Twilight said attack the face right?" Rainbow Dash said while zooming around the beast, "I don't see a face anywhere on this thing, just black clouds! Nothing but dark!"

"Neither do I... But we have to try, remember?" Gilda yelled back at her friend, "Hey! Maybe it's underneath it."

"_What?!_ You want me to go under a huge monster that spits out lightning bolts from its belly like crazy!?"

"You got a better idea?!" Gilda yelled back as she dived under the Electricus.

"Gilda, no!" yelled Rainbow Dash as she rocketed down to save her friend.

It was dark underneath the Electricus, very dark. The only sources of light were the flashes of lightning that struck every so often. It was loud as well, thunder rumbled with a loud echo that shook Rainbow Dash to the core. She hated to admit it, but she was terrified.

Suddenly, she was being pulled on by a very strong hand, and had no choice but to be dragged wherever it felt. Rainbow Dash heard a scream, and looked towards the source of it. In the clutches of an enormous scaly hand was Gilda, who was struggling and straining to free herself.

Right above her was a horrible face, a bit like a dragon's mixed with a zebra's stripes. It had rows of sharp teeth and zig-zagging stripes covered its face. It seemed to be laughing menacingly, but it sounded more like thunder, as to be expected from an electrical monster.

"So, have you two come to stop us?" boomed the Electricus

"Yes! And we're going to stop you, one way or another!" Rainbow Dash said angrily, as she freed herself from the monster's grasp.

The Electricus laughed and said, "Go ahead, try and stop me pony! I'll spare your land for now, but your friend is still my captive." And just like that, the lightning ceased.


End file.
